SHU Marks Constitution Day with Yale Sterling Professor

Akhil Reed Amar calls the document the start of ‘the process that shaped the modern world’

Sacred Heart University hosted a lecture Sept. 14, “The Constitution and the Court: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” with featured speaker Professor Akhil Reed Amar from Yale University, to mark Constitution Day in the U.S.

Also recognized as Citizenship Day, this federal observance celebrates Sept.17, 1787, when delegates from states gathered in Philadelphia to sign the new nation’s constitution.

SHU’s observance was co-sponsored by the department of government, the pre-law club and the Human Journey colloquia series. The event began with opening statements from Professor Gary Rose, chairman of SHU’s department of government, and Jack Kurnik, president of SHU’s pre-law club.

“To have the University host an event like this is telling of what tremendous growth the University has seen in recent years,” said Kurnik. “Raising the profile of the University by hosting such prestigious speakers, such as Professor Amar, will only serve to positively contribute to this rapid growth all around campus.”

Rose summarized SHU’s yearly tradition of inviting a guest speaker for Constitution Day regardless of political affiliation. “There is no agenda with Constitution Day,” he said.

Amar is a Sterling professor of law and political science at Yale, where he teaches constitutional law in Yale College and Yale Law School. His work has won awards from the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 45 cases.

The professor is the author of more than 100 law review articles and several books, most notably The Bill of Rights, America’s Constitution, America’s Unwritten Constitution and The Constitution Today.

During Amar’s lecture, he pulled a miniature copy of the Constitution out of his breast pocket and explained how the signing of the U.S. Constitution’s final draft lives in history as the beginning of “the process that shaped the modern world.”

“The world is split into two parts, B.C., or before the constitution, and A.D., after the document,” said Amar.

He spent most of his lecture reading and reflecting upon another of his many publications, The Words That Made Us. This book, is dedicated to the “history of the American Constitution’s formative decades.”

After reading from the chapter titled “People,” as in the renowned line, “We the people,” Amar informed the audience that his many written works are not exclusively tied to his personal beliefs. Rather, he asserted, they hold no affiliations and are “not about me; they’re about us.”

Fired-up and ready for deeper conversation, Amar opened the floor to questions from the eagerly awaiting audience. Questions touched on a range of topics, from corruption in the media to the power of an open conversation.

As Amar closed his lecture, he encouraged audience members to listen to his podcast, wittily titled “Amarica’s Constitution,” for additional information.